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Category: Music

Shi no butō - Malice Mizer (Translation)

This is one of my favourite tracks in the album, because it's as malicious and miserable and whimsical and cvnty as it can get. A whole track, originally written by Tetsu the Great, about Cinderella (or better, Cendrillon). The twin guitars are going crazy, seven different tempos going on, the usual scrumptious bass... just quintessential Malice Mizer. 
As it often happens in this blog, the differences between the written and the sung text are highlighted in brackets. In particular, two sentences are written in English and sung as their translation in Japanese, so I have included the sung lyrics in brackets. There is also a small typo in the booklet, highlighted with an asterisk  (unless I got a fake...but I trust these divas in their disregard for the English language).
Thank you for reading and let me know what you think <3

死の舞踏 〜a romance of the "Cendrillon"〜

(music: Mana / lyrics: Tetsu, later recorded by Gackt)

「oh... "Cendrillon" I fulfill your wish...」
[お前の望みを叶えてやる]

一夜限りの恋と夢と憧れと未来と
誰の物でもないauroraの服をまとい舞踏会へ

「If my wish is realized 
Please take me on the from* of a beautiful woman again」
[もしも願いが叶うのなら
この体を元に戻して]

柱から見下ろす意地悪な時計の針
抱き重なる瞬間をもう少しだけ後にまわして

長い廊下の一番奥の救われる夢はどこまでもずっと…
硝子の靴を履いたらこの夜が終わらぬよう
硝子の靴を抜くまでずっと踊らせて

[柱から見下ろす意地悪な時計の針
抱き重なる瞬間をもう少しだけ後にまわして]

硝子の靴を履いたらこの夜が終わらぬよう
硝子の靴の片方あの夜に忘れてこよう

まるで御伽話のような どこかで聞いたような夜
ずっと覚めないでおくれ
この夜が… [この夜が…]
長い廊下の一番奥の救われる夢はどこまでもずっと…覚めない

Shi no butō

"Oh... Cendrillon, omae no nozomi wo kanaete yaru"

Hitoyo kagiri no koi to yume to akogare to mirai to 
Dare no mono de mo nai Aurora no fuku wo matoi butōkai e

"Moshi mo negai ga kanau no nara 
Kono karada wo moto ni modoshite"

Hashira kara miorosu ijiwaruna tokei no hari
Dakikasanaru shunkan wo mou sukoshi dake ato ni mawashite 

Nagai rōka no ichiban oku no sukuwareru yume wa doko made mo zutto...
Garasu no kutsu wo haitara kono yoru ga owaranu you
Garasu no kutsu wo nuku made zutto odorasete

[Hashira kara miorosu ijiwaruna tokei no hari
Dakikasanaru shunkan wo mō sukoshi dake ato ni mawashite ]

Garasu no kutsu wo haitara kono yoru ga owaranu you
Garasu no kutsu no katahou ano yoru ni wasurete koyou

Marude otogibanashi no you
Dokoka de kiita youna yoru 
Zutto samenaide okure
Kono yoru ga... [Kono yoru ga...]
Nagai rouka no ichiban oku no sukuwareru yume wa doko made mo zutto... Samenai

The dance of death

“Oh… Cendrillon, I will fulfill your wish.”

A love, a dream, a longing, a future for one night only…
Wear Aurora’s dress, which doesn’t belong to anybody, and go to the ball

“If my wish is fulfilled
Please make me a beautiful woman again.”
[“Please restore this body to what it once was”]

The hands of a cruel clock look down at me from a pillar
Putting off the moment we’ll embrace a little longer

At the very end of the long corridor, dreams of salvation stretch as far as the eye can see
If you wear your glass slippers, may this night never end 
Let us continue dancing until you take your glass slippers off 

The hands of a cruel clock look down at me from a pillar
Putting off the moment we’ll embrace a little longer

If you wear your glass slippers, may this night never end
And on that night, leave one of those glass slippers behind

It’s truly a night out of a fairytale, one I have heard of somewhere
Please, don’t ever wake me up
This night… this night...
At the very end of the long corridor, dreams of salvation stretch as far as the eye can see... never-ending

Notes: I took some freedom in translating these lyrics, because they are a bit vague in a couple of spots, and I tried to find a sense for the whole. For example, where it talks about the long corridor, the dreams aren't really associated with a verb (it's more like "dreams of salvation are everywhere, all the way"), but I chose a more literary version. In the last sentence, where it says "never-ending", it's actually more like "not waking up" (meaning, I think, that those dreams don't end because nobody wakes from them). I also added two alternatives in the "If my with is fulfilled" line: the first is closer to the written version, the second is a translation of the sung part in Japanese ("moto ni modosu" means restoring something to how it was). One final note: as it often happens, we don't know for sure who the subject of the chorus is, but I chose "you" because I think that Cendrillon's POV is in the dialogue with... death(?) at the beginning. So I think the POV of the rest of the song is our usual vampire yearning for this princess. One thing I took as a clue is that in the second chorus, the final verb (koyou) is the volitional form of kuru (to come), so I think it's him saying he would like her to forget one glass slipper so that they have an excuse to meet again. 
Thank you for reading, and thanks Maiden Death for the code! The background is a picture by Nona Limmen


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